Nothing
by katterpillar
Summary: He was a defective, damaged sociopath to some, but that was better than nothing. Angst. Teen Tony. Oneshot.


'**Nothing'**

**Genre: Angst**

**Characters: Tony (as a teen) and his parents.**

****

"Anthony? _Anthony!_"

The voice was stale, husky, grating unpleasantly on Tony's ears. It was a tone that was laden with dislike, a searing regret, like rival addressing rival rather than mother addressing son. A boy shouldn't have to hear that when spoken to by his mother. He'd heard his name being called like that all throughout his childhood, and it became less and less endearing as time went on.

Tony lingered for a moment in front of a display stand of '_Carbernet Merlot_,' gazing at the wine bottles with unseeing eyes, before turning to cautiously appraise the woman beside him.

"Hold the vermouth, would you, boy? _TONY_! Hold _the fucking vermouth!_"

She was screaming impatiently before he even had the chance to respond, and thrust the bottle of '_Fratelli Branca' _into his hands. The trolley's wheels were creaking ominously underneath the weight of the substantial cargo that had been stacked upon it. Tony couldn't really count, but he tried- Vodka, brandy, sherry, rum, champagne, wines, whisky, merlot…

Tony's mother was pawing through her wallet, '_Jag,_' made of red leather and imported directly from Venice. Tony really didn't see the point, because he'd seen the exact same wallet at the mall not long after she'd had it shipped.

She just wanted to be able to say that it was 'Italian,' because money was not an issue and reputation evidently was.

At seventeen, Tony was not even supposed to be pushing his mother's trolley in a BWS, let alone cradling a bottle of spirits in one arm. There was a middle-aged woman at the checkouts who watched Tony warily, saw the bottle in his hands, and narrowed her eyes like a watchful hawk.

She looked as if she considered telling him to put the alcohol down, but took one look at Tony's mother who was muttering obscenely to herself as she rifled through her credit cards, and decided against it. Abandoning her civil duties was nothing compared to the wrath of Mrs. Marie DiNozzo.

"Here," she said with quivering fingers, thrusting a bunch of hundred dollar notes towards the woman at the register, and promptly striding off without bothering to receive her change.

Tony gave the lady an apologetic look, and then braced the entirety of his weight against the trolley, causing it to roll slowly from the registers towards the doors where his mother was waiting anxiously. She was short, much shorter than Tony, with mousy-brown hair in natural waves, pulled back into a bun.

Her features were symmetrical and defined, and in her heyday anybody could tell she'd have been a beautiful woman. However, she looked tired and sour, jaded over time. Her nose was scarlet from the consumption of too much alcohol and her skin was yellowed because of her imminently failing liver.

"Would you hurry the hell up?" she snapped at him, leering unpleasantly as he heaved with all his might against the trolley, wheeling it slowly but surely towards his mother's _Corvette_. He decided it was best not to respond, lest he invoke her infamous temper.

At seventeen, Tony was already a very good looking young lad. Tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, he oozed effortless charisma, evidently a ladies' man in the making. But he also had an endearing genuineness about him, honesty and the inexplicable drive to help people which caused him to be consistently labelled as a 'good guy.'

However, his mother and father never seemed to see it that way.

He hauled the boxes of alcohol, one-by-one, into the trunk of the car without complaint as his mother watched on protectively.

"That's Smirnoff, be careful with that, boy, that shit is expensive, worth more than your useless ass," she muttered, waving her hands impatiently as he grunted and heaved with every subsequent box.

Tony scarcely batted an eyelid. Ever since the age of fourteen, his mother had slowly become increasingly bitter and scathing. He'd long since given up trying to hold a decent conversation with her, because all she could manage was to bark 'you useless little shit!' and storm off to the sitting room where she would drown herself in liquor, or cry softly to herself for reasons Tony could never comprehend.

"Done," he gasped, his arms resonating with a dull ache. He appreciated the exercise, but a little compassion never hurt. He straightened, looked both ways to seek out his mother, but her location was given away as the Corvette's engine began to purr flawlessly and fluidly, the wheels already beginning to move backwards.

Without hesitation, Tony yanked open the door of the back seat and leapt inside, just as the car reversed violently, and the wheels screeched as it pulled out and began to accelerate out of the asphalt park. Tony knew that if he didn't jump in before she had the chance to drive away, she would gladly just leave him standing there, tired and numb in the car-park of the BWS, watching apathetically as she left him in her wake.

Tony braced himself against the seat as she navigated her way erratically out of the side streets onto the main road, still cursing to herself as if she'd lost the ability to think in silence within her own mind.

It hadn't always been like this. Up until the age of eight, his father had been functional and his mother had been liveable.

But then, predictably, the monopoly started to take over. Money and power became the driving force behind family life. His mother began to drink alcohol like water and she became more and more dependant on the foul spirits that Tony so loathed. His father became less of a tycoon and more of a tyrant, rarely addressing his son unless it was particularly important and becoming steadily less responsive to his inebriated wife.

He'd been sent to Rhode Island Military Academy from a very young age, but it was at the age of 9 that they started to board him there, keen to get him out of their way.

Tony visited every Christmas and Easter, and noticed with every subsequent holiday that his parents were becoming more and more unbalanced with every passing year.

On his twelfth birthday, he returned home permanently. He was going to attend Ohio State for his high school schooling and he was almost excited to be back in permanent residency.

That was, until he found his father's letter on the mantelpiece.

'_We have raised you as little more than a common houseboy, so I can take partial blame for the way you have turned out. I apologize that I did not have more to do with your education, but it is clear you lack the hereditary drive and intelligence that requires one to succeed in life. You are clearly more of a soldier than a businessman, and although you are my son, I am sorry to say I have not included you in my will, and you will not stake a claim in my inheritance. _

_Sincerely,_

_Anthony DiNozzo Sr.'_

Tony wasn't upset. He hadn't even felt remorseful. In fact, he'd felt only a burning rage for that one line in the letter- 'for the way you've turned out.' As if it were HE, Tony, who was the damaged one, like he had become something rotten or impure. Anthony DiNozzo Sr. was the antagonist in Tony's life, and the most vile, unpleasant man he'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Tony found himself forging a more endearing relationship with the toads in the backyard than he did with his own father, his own parent.

So, in response, he left his own little memento on his father's leather armchair.

'_I never want to be anything like you. Kindly go fuck yourself._

_Tony_.'

At twelve, he had a maturity far beyond his years. He never spoke to his father after that- generally, he came home from school, he holed himself up in his room, and if he needed a permission slip signed, he gave it to the maid to slip into his father's inbox. On a daily basis, their interaction was never more than an apathetic passing glance in the hallways.

As he got older he became more and more interested in the fascinating world of females. He had his first girlfriend at thirteen, and by fourteen, he had run all the 'bases' that were physically possible.

As he got older, he would sneak attractive female accomplices back into the DiNozzo mansion where he would have his way with them and then smuggle them out again.

His father didn't care, but his mother did.

"What will the neighbours think, boy, bringing home your husseys like a dog brings bones? Disgusting, you're just like your father, chasing every bloody skirt you can find."

"She's my girlfriend, mum."

"Bullshit she's your girlfriend, she's a fucking toy. You want something with a hole? I'll buy you a pencil sharpener."

At that age, Mrs. DiNozzo still had her good moments. She could be proud, sensible, loving, coddling, laughed at his jokes and made conversation when sober.

But then those moments became steadily more uncommon and as Tony's father didn't give a damn how much sherry his wife would consume in one day, she suffered her imminent collapse of character, becoming increasingly more unpleasant until Tony liked her no more than he liked his sire.

"Boy! Get the hell out of the car."

Her voice brought him back into the present world and he blinked numbly at her as she glared at him through the back seat of the Corvette.

He nodded numbly and hit the lever on the car door, stepping out. There were a few houseboys who were unloading the alcohol out of the car and carefully carrying it into the sitting room adjacent to the garage.

She watched them until they'd finished and dispersed, locked the car and walked into the sitting room where Tony was sitting on the lounge, legs splayed and hands clasped together between his knees, gazing cautiously up at her.

"What the hell are you looking at?" she spat, fingers trembling slightly, as she hadn't had a drink in a while now. She grabbed a large crystal glass off the kitchen counter and then promptly sunk down in her plush sitting chair, and closed her eyes.

She inhaled and exhaled deeply, pulse thundering loudly through her veins. She could feel herself being watched and when she opened her eyes, Tony was still gazing contemplatively at her.

"Stop staring at me, I'm not a fucking zoo animal," she sniped sourly at him with a contorted face like a snarling dog. Her eyes were green, but also bloodshot from the alcohol abuse and now looked almost amber with the significant flecks of yellow that had accumulated in her iris.

She muttered 'whiskey' to herself and then blindly felt forward, not even looking at what bottle she'd got hold of. Instead of grabbing the whiskey, she instead picked up the pure spirits, and without checking the label on the bottle, laboriously started unscrewing the lid.

"That's not whiskey," Tony told her dryly as she successfully eradicated the bottle top and placed it on the sitting room table, licking her lips and coughing, pupils dilating with pleasure. She didn't listen to him.

Instead of swigging what she thought was 80-proof, 40 alcohol whiskey, she was drinking straight from a bottle of 95 alcohol spirits.

"Don't drink that straight, it ain't whiskey, you'll poison yourself," he told her, a little louder this time, and becoming watchful as again she did not take heed.

Without consideration, she brought the bottle to her mouth and started to drink down the spirits, obviously intending to drink down the entire bottle straight.

"Marie!" barked Tony sharply as he never called his mother 'mum' anymore. He leaned forward as he realised her intention, leaning forward and tapping the bottle briefly, intending to bring it away from her mouth. Instead, the bottle slipped from her trembling fingers and landed on the edge of the table, shattering all over the place.

Suddenly consumed with an unforgiving rage, she leapt to her feet, her teeth bared like a savage wildcat, her hair coming loose around her face and her hands trembling as if she would like nothing better than to throttle him.

"Get to your fucking feet," she said quietly, shaking with rage.

Tony swallowed, but slowly got up, her eyes locked on his. That was the one thing they had in common- eyes, he'd inherited her eyes.

Smack. Her hand came swinging, and although he saw it coming, he couldn't find the incentive to move. Her palm stung his face, her fingernails dug deep into his cheeks and the skin on his face felt raw and painful.

"It wasn't whiskey!" he defended himself vociferously, not daring to touch his stinging cheek, not intending on showing any weakness.

Smack. Her hand came swinging again, and she advanced on him, a deathly anger in her eyes.

"From day one you've been a smart-mouthed little prick, it's a genetic trait, you shit. You're as horrible and insensitive as your asshole of a sire."

"I'm _nothing like _my father," Tony growled defensively, with no choice but to back up as his mother shamelessly shepherded him backwards.

Slap! Another ringing whack across the face, so hard he thought his face would blister. He attempted not to make a noise and instead gasped, jaw aching profoundly.

"Don't talk to me like that, boy. You're useless. You've been nothing but a burden to me and Anthony ever since you were born. You're rude."

Smack. Another clout across the face.

"You're domineering."

Smack. He felt as if the skin on his cheeks was going to evaporate.

"And you are going to end up a feral, skirt-chasing, delirious bastard as all males in the DiNozzo line do. You're no fucking son of mine. You're no man at all. You're nothing! _Nothing!_"

Her teeth were bared, savage, like a cat on the prowl, but it was her words that struck a chord.

A switch flicked in Tony's head.

His temper, which had been boiling unpleasantly in his gut for years now, began to seethe and toss, and he could feel it beginning to rise inside him until it burst and boiled over and consumed him. He could feel an uncontrollable surge of repressed rage charging up through his body, scalding him from the inside out.

He'd loved his mother once, and so while he had made the definite decision to cut his father out of his life, he could never bring himself to think about estranging himself from Marie.

Until now.

Her hand arced up to slap him again, but this time, Tony caught her arm mid-swing and stopped dead in his tracks, no longer obediently moving backwards.

Her eyes widened in shock and rage and she looked surprised at first, but that quickly dissolved into aggravated outrage.

She made to backhand him with her other arm, but he instinctively caught that hand too, and then fluidly pushed her back off him. Not to hurt her, simply to ward her away.

Marie DiNozzo stumbled back like a drunken sailor, keeping her precarious balance, before straightening in a fury. "You son of a bitch!" she howled indignantly, unaware that she'd just insulted herself by using that phrase.

"_Nothing_!" growled Tony, stepping forward, drawing himself to his full height and standing in a way that was almost predatorial.

For the first time in a very, very, long time, Tony could see something flicker behind his mother's eyes, a wariness, maybe even fear.

"Well, this is me, Tony DiNozzo, telling you that I'm the son of a greedy bastard and a drunken _bitch_."

Tony extended a hand and grabbed a bottle of Puerto Rican White Rum. Without hesitation, he violently and passionately flung it to the floor, where it shattered into a myriad shards of glass and the alcohol seeped out over the timber.

Marie's mouth opened in disbelief but she made no move to stop him advancing.

"This is me, telling you that I'm here and I'm real, and I'm human. I'm not a dog, or a slave, or a psychopath. I don't hump legs and I don't slit throats. Despite my genetics, _I'm a good man!"_

He backhanded a half-full bottle of '_Cinzano_' that had been left on the counter next the kitchen. It rolled off the counter, onto the bench, and then fell off to crash on the floor of the kitchen.

Her eyes were narrowed and her breath was coming faster and Tony could see her knuckles, white against her skin.

"This is me telling you that you're _never_ going to see me turn twenty-one, or meet your grandchildren, or watch me marry."

They were encroaching on the sitting table now, with Marie looking increasingly disturbed. He reached out and took hold of a bottle of 'Moet & Chandon' champagne, and with equal vehemence, threw that to the floor as well, where it smashed across the sitting room rug.

He needed to hurt things, to ruin things, to cause destruction. If it wasn't the alcohol, it would be Marie herself, and Tony knew that in a million years he could never lay a violent hand on a woman.

"This is me, your _son_, telling you that I'm everything you never were, and nothing you'll ever be. If I'm nothing, it's because I'm _nothing like you!_ And it that's not something, then _I don't know what the hell is!"_

His voice rose into such a thunderous crescendo that it echoed through the sitting room. Tony took hold of the 80-proof whiskey and hurled that to the ground, where it shattered and caused his mother to flinch with such vindication that Tony thought she was going to weep.

But she didn't cry- she just stood there, staring at him, shaking slightly, her eyes wide and her expression twisted as if she had come to a realisation.

Tony had been so engrossed in his own rage that he didn't even realise he'd been walking across the glass, barefoot.

His feet were bleeding profusely across the carpet, but he didn't care. His expression was so sincere and infuriated that he looked like something out of a bad horror movie- eyes bright and green and almost glowing with passion, teeth flashing white against the darkness of the down-lighted room as he spoke, his face so expressive when he spoke that Marie almost expected him to grow hackles and start snarling.

Tony gave his mother a long, lingering look, turned, and walked down the hallway towards his own space, leaving bloody footprints in his wake.

He refused to limp- he walked with a straight back, bearing the pain until he reached his bedroom, where he slammed shut the door and locked it, then hobbled to his bed to drop, emotionally exhausted, onto his sheets.

He set about examining his damaged feet, picking out the larger pieces of glass with his fingers and tossing them aside. He refused to address what had just happened in his mind, because there was nothing left to say and nothing left to dwell on.

As of now, he hated her with every bone in his body and he could not think of a single reason why he should stay in this damn house a moment longer.

He grunted to himself as he lay back on his bed, on his muscular flank, trying with all his might to ignore the pain in his feet, the aching through his shoulders and back and the throbbing in his head. The outburst had drained him completely.

After seven years of outright persecution, what else was he to do? He'd been disowned by his own father and loathed by his own mother since the day he'd learnt to talk.

A vast majority of Tony's common sense knew that it was not really his fault. His mother was damaged, socially inadequate, almost perpetually inebriated. His father was a hungry, cheating old lout, who slept around behind his wife's back almost as much as she drank Vodka.

Tony knew for a fact that he'd slept with his financial planner, secretary, office clerk, and their French maid, Dijana.

But that small minority, a small slice of Tony's being, had always wondered… Why? Why was it that despite his best efforts, he was still so hated by his parents? When had he gone wrong?

He'd always been obedient, polite, charming and friendly to the very best of his abilities. Those traits had been drilled into him early in his childhood, and then challenged completely as soon as he'd reached adolescence. At what time had he committed a crime so heinous that he was to be despised so wholeheartedly by his family?

Perhaps he was not aware of it.

Worse yet, perhaps his mother was right. Hell, she'd had no other reason to treat him like she did. Maybe it was because she was right, and Tony was a broken young defective psychopath who couldn't look past his own reflection.

Rude. Domineering.

Why it was that he was considered arrogant and brash, when he was the most surrendering man he knew? He had been forced to lie down and take verbal abuse, every god-damn minute of his god-damn life.

He'd been humiliated, attacked, exposed, and taken advantage of again and again until he'd felt so ripped open that all he could do was sit there, eyes glazed, and listen.

Yes, I'm a mistake.

Yes, I'm useless.

Yes, I'm a waste.

Yes, you wish I was never born.

Alright, I get it now, I savvy. Every time I breathe, a small child in Africa dies of oxygen deprivation. Alright. Can I go now? I'd like to go to my room and dwell on how much of a useless shithead I am.

Thanks, Mom. Love you. See you in the morning.

Tony was shaking now, his hands clasped on either side of his face, his teeth clenched. He wouldn't cry, because he'd trained himself not to.

At the Military Academy, if you cried, you were force-fed a chilli by the prefects and then taunted for weeks afterwards by your peers until you were socially defective and wanted nothing more than to curl up and tremble. So that was he did- he fought back the tears and trembled like a kicked dog.

He shook for the pain of his mother's lost love and for the open laceration that was his lack of a functioning father. He trembled because he was like the infection in the festering wound that was his family.

He shivered because he didn't know what he should do, and he didn't know how the hell he could fix this.

A sharp cry broke through his reverie and caused him to open his tired, but dry eyes and stare at the wall.

"Mon dieu, elle est morte! La maîtresse est est blessé! Aider quelqu'un!"

It was the maid- Dijana. A pretty little thing, tanned and dark haired. She tottered around in high heels and short little skirts, giggling and dusting things. Dijana didn't really do any cleaning- she was less useful than a hip pocket on a singlet, to be completely honest.

But that screaming sounded distressed, high-pitched, almost hysterical. That wasn't the normal sort of screaming. That was the sort of screaming you heard in those horror movies when a pretty girl got chased down by a hairy-looking vampire.

Exhausted but curious, Tony swung his stinging feet to the floor. The mattress creaked under his weight as he got to his feet, swaying awkwardly, and sauntered lightly towards the reinforced cedarwood door. He was still leaving patches of blood wherever he walked, despite the fact that he'd removed a majority of glass.

Walking on broken bottles probably wasn't the brightest idea in the book. But at least the spilt alcohol would be cleaning out the wounds.

He stepped into the sitting room like a wayward dog, watching with heavy-lidded eyes, surveying the scene before him.

His mother was lying back across the lounge. On first glance, Tony thought that she'd simply passed out, as she normally did. But she was a little too still for that.

Her chest wasn't moving, her skin was pasty and white, her eyes were almost completely creamy yellow and were staring blankly up at the ceiling. Her mouth was gaping open, her tongue resting loose on her lips and a light white foam had gathered at her teeth. Her expression was contorted into a look of complete loathing, but also a final purpose, decisiveness, a peculiar peace. She'd died the way she'd lived- with a look of hatred etched on her maw.

A hole was beginning to form in Tony's gut. It gnawed at him, made his breath come quicker, almost to the point where he was hyperventilating.

On the sitting room table, was a plastic container of green liquid highly distinct amongst the many delicate glass alcohol bottles. On the side, it read '_Dillon Chemical Timber Floor Cleaner._'

"Que dois-je faire, Monsieur! Devrais-je appeler votre père? Devrais-je appeler une ambulance?" rattled away Dijana incomprehensibly, obviously frightened and panicking, unaware that she was speaking French and he could not understand her.

"Holy fucking hell," said Tony breathlessly, the emptiness eating through his mind and body. "She's poisoned herself."

Tony's pocket suddenly began to shake against his leg and he jumped.

What the hell was that?

It took Tony a few minutes to realise that his cell phone was ringing in his pocket, vibrating against his jean leg. His fingers felt numb and shivery and he could scarcely hold the phone. After a few unsuccessful tries, he flipped it open. Before he could even say 'hello,' a familiar and much hated voice drifted through the receiver.

_"Anthony. The butler just came to see me. Marie is dead in the sitting room. I'm golfing with the Undersecretary of the Commerce office in a half-hour. Tell Patrick he needs to organise the cremation. No wake."_

His father's tone was completely apathetic, as if he were discussing tonight's dinner rather than the fact that his wife had just committed suicide in their own living room. He was going out to play _golf?_

Tony wanted to scream at him. '_You fuckhead! Why don't you come and see what a mess you've made of our lives? Why don't you come and take a look at how you've practically massacred our family and let your wife drink herself to suicide?'_

But he couldn't.

Because the dial tone was buzzing in his ear, and like always, it was Tony who shut the phone last and paused for quite a few moments afterwards, gathering his bearings.

After a moment, he threw his cell phone onto the ground of the living room, the line of his jaw trembling and then settling, becoming firm.

Tony stepped over towards his dead mother as Dijana jabbered on senselessly, weeping in the kitchen.

She looked so white, so angry, so alien. With a knot churning like daggers in his gut, Tony gingerly reached forward and touched his mother's smooth marble skin, so icey cold to the touch.

He gently put his fingers to her eyelids, bile rising in his throat, and shut them, smoothing down the taut muscles which caused her face to relax and become impassive. With an aching tenderness, he wiped the foam away from her mouth, and pushed the hair out of her eyes.

Now she looked different.

She looked peaceful, and beautiful, and happy, almost blissful in her sleep.

For a moment, Tony forgot the anguish he'd endured at her hands. Vague memories flitted to the forefront of his mind.

His mother, laughing and tickling him as she dressed him up like an American sailor, complete with the hat, and cheerfully asking him if he wanted to go sailing on one of daddy's boats for his birthday, just like a real sailor.

His mother, wrapping her arms tightly around him and holding him close as he divulged his recent nightmare around bad men with guns who'd burned down their house and chased after them with wolves.

Her mother, riding horseback with Tony sitting in the saddle in front of her, laughing fluidly and beautifully as the horse baulked whenever a bird twittered and Tony would jump nervously, fearful of falling. Then she'd wrap her arms around him and kiss him, because everything was fine now and there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of, because she was his mother and while he was in her arms, everything was wonderful.

Tony's voice was uneven and his breath jumped unsteadily in his throat.

This was how it was supposed to be.

This was how he'd forgotten it was.

This was how he'd remember it, because there was nothing left for him here.

He gave her one last lingering look, just to ingrain that expression in his memory. If there was anything he wanted to take from this place, that was it.

Tony stepped across the broken glass, slipping slightly as he walked, ignoring the biting sting in his feet as he moved.

He watched the corridor pass him by, mesmerized by the grain of the wood and the resplendent patterns on the framework.

He stepped out of the front door and onto the terrace, the fresh air hitting him like a brick wall.

He'd never felt anything so refreshing in his entire life, because it was the taste of the new world and the new life. It was the beginning of the end, because he was going now. He was leaving for good.

And there was a vehement burning in his chest, and in his gut, that told him that he was never coming back.


End file.
